Almost Mars

Adventures of a Simulated Astronaut —the view on Mauna Loa of the HI-SEAS, the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation – to continue until May 2015 How do six researchers live inside a dome for eight months and still get along?! Their answers can help us prepare for long-term flights aboard spaceships and improve our […]

Tips from Space — or How to Go to Mars Without Going Crazy

MD Pilots Association, Feb. 20, 2015 This winter I reveal some conversations with astronauts and others who have been or working on long-term space flights. How to pack them off for success, and the implications for us here on Earth. Space, the place of dreams, is the place of invention that benefit us all.

Know When It’s Time to Get Your Chicks Together

MJ Marggraff – Mogul Mom It was a very early, frosty grey morning in January, more than 20 years ago. But so are most mornings in the Boston area that time of year. It was the first day of going back to work after my son was born. I have a child! A son. My […]

NASTAR 2013

North American Space Training and Research Center outside of Philadelphia, PA, July 2013. My classmates and I, along with our instructional team, wait alongside the centrifuge that we will enter to get our space training.   Train like you mean it! To know what it takes to go up… NASTAR’s simulators are among the best […]

What’s Your Small and Scary Step?

Eleanor Roosevelt said that we should do “at least one thing every day” that scares us. Later, Erma Bombeck concurred, adding that real courage is tested when “taking children into a house with a white carpet.” I started to learn how to swim this New Year; the instructor, a seasoned coach and now retired, prodded […]

An Insider’s View: The Keys to Success

What are the Keys to Success when we live in Space on a voyage demandingly long — say, 200 million miles to Mars? One former astronaut I interviewed has the distinction of several completed missions including a long duration on the International Space Station. From personal experience he is enthusiastic to share what is critical […]

‘Next Giant Leap’ Conference, Hawaii, Nov. 9, 2014

PICES Tour: Nov. 9, 2014 (Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems) Highpoints of attending the ‘Next Giant Leap’ Conference on the Big Island, Hawaii HI-SEAS habitat dome, where six will live for eight months (until Spring 2015) as if on Mars. Mauna Loa at 8000 feet provides an ideal geologic analogue to the surface […]